How Hippies Celebrate Christmas

Just about every year between 1990 and 2006 (the only exception being the absence of a 2005 album), KROQ's Kevin & Bean have released a charity Christmas album filled with crappy Christmas covers and hokey-ass schtick. The 2001 album was more or less the same shit with two notable exceptions. First, the cover had porn stars. Yay.


More importantly, though, the album included a beautiful rendition of "Someday at Christmas" by Remy Zero. The song was particularly apt considering the compilation was released only three months after September 11. I don't think I've ever heard a song that so flawlessly captured both the heartache and the subsequent hope that emanated at the time.

What I didn't realize until a bit later was that this song was originally released as a single by Stevie Wonder in 1966, right before hippie culture's climactic "summer of love" the following year. Did Stevie Wonder invent the hippie anthem? Well, no, because first of all, he didn't write the song, and "Blowin' in the Wind" preceded it by about four years. I just mention this as a weak transition to the following: read Chuck Klosterman's article about Ali and rap.

Remy Zero - Someday at Christmas

Stevie Wonder - Someday at Christmas